Canada's Flaherty to meet with banks next week

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty
will meet with the chief executives of major Canadian banks on
Monday to discuss new financial reporting rules, he said on
Thursday.

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich countries
agreed in April to a set of recommendations for avoiding
another financial market crisis like the credit troubles that
originated in the U.S. subprime market meltdown.

Flaherty said at that time he would push Canadian banks to
adopt some the recommendations, which include common disclosure
standards, more open risk-management and valuation methods with
regard to their exposure to complex credit products.

After a meeting with the banks in late April, he expressed
confidence they would comply with the "leading practices for
disclosure" within 100 days.

Canadian banks, widely considered to be well-capitalized,
have largely complied with the disclosure requirements but need
to do more, he said.

The latest Canadian bank to report a writedown due to the
credit crunch was Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, booking
at pre-tax loss of C$2.48 billion on structured credit in the
second quarter, on top of charges of C$3.4 billion for U.S.
mortgage-related securities and credit protection in the first
quarter.